


i didn't sign up for this

by tarquin



Category: The Creatures (Youtube RPF)
Genre: M/M, Were-Creatures
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-09
Updated: 2015-05-09
Packaged: 2018-03-29 16:17:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3902716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tarquin/pseuds/tarquin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Seamus considers himself a cat person. Lesser so, a werefox person.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i didn't sign up for this

**Author's Note:**

> i've been in a rut lately so to help get over it i wrote 4000 words of self-indulgent bullshit and i wanted to share it with the world i'm sorry

Seamus hates the sound of toenails.

Animal toenails, to be specific. (He doesn’t know if he hates the sound of human toenails too, hasn’t had a chance to find out.) All he knows is that these days he’ll be standing in the kitchen and one of the dogs will come lumbering in, toes –tac-tac-tacc’ing on the tiles, and immediately his mood will sour. When he busts out the laser pointer and Meowgi skitters across a countertop in pursuit of it, the sound of her slip-sliding grates in his ears and makes him clench his teeth.

And when the clock in front of him reads 3:30 in the goddamn morning, and the only thing he can hear is tedious, excited scrabbling that animal's nails on his cursedly un-carpeted floors, Seamus finds his mood dives and his stomach sinks right after it.

At first he tries to ignore the sound, or rather the source of it. Nope, he won’t be playing along tonight. He’ll grab another pillow to put over his exposed ear, he’ll pull the duvet up to his chin, and he’ll sleep _so pointedly hard_ that his own psyche won’t budge even if the noise _wont fucking stop_

He’s awake.

Groaning, Seamus rolls over and snatches his glasses from the nightstand, blinking rapidly to adjust to the lack of light in the room. It’s a half moon in the early summer so he guesses he should have known this was coming anyway. Maybe a calendar hadn’t been such a bad idea after all, but none of that matters now.

As his eyes get used to the darkness and the shadows that wash over the walls, he finds himself focusing in on the shape that’s got itself pressed flat to the door. It’s elongated and wiry, with thin limbs and a pointed snout. Its thick tail lashes ever so gently back and forth as hooked claws scrabble for cause under the door.

He can’t see its eyes or ears or the shiny black nose that he knows is there, but he’s sure all things are accounted for. The slight whines that break the air, along with grunts and snuffles, are so familiar that it should probably worry him, but instead that too just gets on his nerves. Much like the toenails, this thing's dog-noises make Seamus shiver and makes his bones feel cold. He drops his head into his palm.

Outside the door it sounds like Meowgi is having an episode, the exact reason she’s not allowed to sleep in the bedroom anymore. Waking up to one animal having a fit is acceptable, but Seamus won’t stand for two.

He waits until the shape near the door rears back and walks in a tight little circle, leaning up on two legs to try at the door knob before dropping down on all fours again, before he grumpily sighs, “Eddie. What are you doing.”

Though by this point, he knows the answer.

 

“Werefox” was not a term Seamus ever considered himself entirely too familiar with, but he was pretty able to put two and two together, even if he did so just to tell Sly that his jokes were terrible. ‘Werefox’, really? He couldn’t have at least gone with the more classic movie monster, or at least chosen an animal that wasn’t directly related to his youtube handle?

 _But no_ , Sly had insisted, _it’s true, it’s all true. I just can't show you yet_.

He told Seamus that he’d needed him to know this. That, even though he was elated that they were far enough along to be moving in together, he never had it in him to tell him, and he only tried to tell him so Seamus could be ready to face it.

Seamus hadn’t taken him seriously, (but in his defense who _would_ ,) and had told him to drop the act. Eddie at the time was dejected, but Seamus had attributed it to his boyfriend not playing along with his joke, not that Seamus was refusing to acknowledge therianthropy.

Laughing it off had worked pretty well too, at least until the warm half-moon night where he’d awoken to Eddie on the floor just off his side of the bed, drenched in sweat, writhing and cursing as he edged his body further and further from the sheets. 

“Eddie?” Seamus had asked, voice small and worried as he reached for his phone and fumbled for the emergency call button. He dropped it though, would have dropped anything in his hands, as a second later he’d watched the boy’s bare shoulders bunch, watched the muscles in his back clench and release, and then heard a sickening crunch as one body shaped itself into another.

It had been horrifying, disgusting. At some point during the transformation Eddie had looked up at Seamus and he’d watched, petrified and unable to look away, as the bones in the boy’s face had rearranged. He watched his jaw elongate, saw how the darkness in his eyes suddenly took on sheen as even they ceased to be Eddie's completely.

Those eyes pleaded for mercy from him, kindness, but Seamus was too stunned to even turn over those thoughts in his head.

To his credit though, he had not screamed.

Thrown up a little while later maybe, but he hadn’t screamed. 

When the transformation was over, Seamus was left with a creature roughly the size of a large dog, skinny, coated with a thick orange pelt with tips dappled in white and black, and eyes that were neither entirely human nor wild.

The fox creature stayed curled on the floor and watched as Seamus got up and got ready to leave the room. It watched him as he wobbled to the door and bolted, slamming it behind him and spending the rest of the night pacing around the house, unwilling to sleep or approach his own bedroom again.

 

The next morning Eddie emerged with a grimace.

Just Eddie, normal and human. Two legs instead of four, hair in place, beard neatly trimmed, glasses atop his nose and a worried smile on his face.

“You uh, you got some questions for me, Seamus?” 

"Mmhm, yeah." Seamus had readily replied.

It turned out of course that there was only so much they could establish because there was only so much Eddie knew about his affliction. How the “curse” (Eddie’s words, not Seamus’) started or passed on, thewerefox could only guess. There were thousands of years of mythos surrounding it, but none of it really came into play when the hard and factual truth that they ended up with was that at least once a month, Eddie's spine snapped so he became a quadruped and most higher thought vanished as he embraced the world for wild things.

Which was just. _So_ encouraging.

What they  _could_ establish though, and what they agreed was the most important part, was that it was still Eddie in there. The beast- The Fox’s rather- mind worked like neither wild animal nor sentient human, but some strange combination of both. The way he'd put it was that Eddie was still giving directions, backseat driving, only the directions were given to a driver that barely spoke his language. (Either of them.)

But even as Eddie had changed in front of him, the boy told Seamus, he’d felt real guilt for what his partner was witnessing. He couldn't find things like the sound of Seamus' name in his second mind, or what a "boyfriend" was, but he knew he was with someone important. Maybe the most important.

The fear on Seamus’ face had made it through the thick fog of wildness, to the part where Eddie’s human mind rested, and it was sorry.

"You realize it's gonna be a while until I'm totally on board with this, I think you know that." Seamus had said. Eddie had squeezed his hand a little tighter and given him a soft smile. Seamus' chest wobbled. A few hours ago he'd watched this guy turn into an animal and he still gave him butterflies. Goddamn.

"Yeah, I figured." Eddie replied. "And that's okay, it's kind of a lot to take in. But just know that I'm in there. And I'll never hurt you, and I'll do my best not to rip the sheets. I love you."

 

But then, once they got it down that Eddie in his second skin wasn’t dangerous, they had to face the fact that he was a little… annoying.

The human part of Eddie, he assured Seamus, wanted nothing more than to stay in bed with him and cuddle all night long. He considered it a favorite pastime really. But the animal side wanted out. For just one month a night it wanted to taste ice cold Colorado river water, wanted to roll in peaty earth and chase birds until the sun rose.

It was difficult, trying to be sympathetic towards an urge he'd never once felt in his life. But Seamus tried anyway.

So after he started waking up monthly to the sound of those  _fucking_ toenails (He found it was possible to sleep through the transformation if it wasn’t rough and thank  _God_ for that,) their first plan of action was just to let nature take its course. There was _no way in hell_ Seamus was keeping a lumbering wild animal in his bedroom until it came time for it to be his boyfriend again, and so he’d take the easy way out instead. Get woken up, roll over, push the window open, watch its slender body spring out on to the grass below and roll back over, hopefully within the span of a minute, two tops.

And that worked! Twice.

The first two times the fox took off as per their agreement, and Eddie arrived home before Seamus even woke. Both times he’d crept out of bed, and found himself in the kitchen facing a freshly showered Eddie and a pot of hot coffee waiting for him and frankly, that’s the closest he’d ever come to being a hundred percent okay with all of this.

Then came month three.

The situation was much the same, the toenails, the digging. Then a pause. This time when Seamus awoke he found himself staring straight into two round and shiny eyes, as the fox had plopped its head on the edge of the bed a moment earlier. A frosty shiver had gone up Seamus’ spine at the sight. He knew those eyes; they’d squinted in barely repressed hysterics at Seamus’ jokes for years.

But at the same time they belonged to an animal. Seamus blinked hard. This part of it was as far away from Eddie as it could get _._

“Yeah, we’re not doing this.” Seamus had said, shaking off the shivers and pushing the fox’s face away from him. It was the first time he’d ever touched it and he had to admit, the muzzle was soft, the nose was cold, it wasn’t an entirely bad experience.

But that was not a thought he was even remotely ready to tackle.

Instead he sat up, opening up the window and knocking out the screen, waving a quick farewell as the fox stood up on hind legs to look out at the city, then turned and looked behind him.

 It’s ears flicked, it tipped its head to the side. It looked outside, then at Seamus, then back. An invitation. _Are you sure you don’t want to come?_

“No, I’m good.” Seamus had yawned, flopping back so his face smacked the still-warm pillows. Maybe one day, his sleep-plagued brain told him. Maybe when this stopped feeling like a weird fever dream, and he was the right balance of sleep-deprived and curious. But sure as hell not tonight.

The fox’s tail swished once in acknowledgement before he disappeared the rest of the way out of the window, and that was supposed to be the end of it.

It wasn’t.

It had set out for the woods at around one am, and Seamus had fallen asleep within minutes afterwards. So waking up again to the thinnest of light tricking in through his window and a clock that read 4:45 was not at all in his plans. Even lesser so was looking around to see what the weight on his legs was, and blanching at the sight of what could only be a severed leg of some poor ungulate. There was the fox propped up on the foot of the bed behind it too, eyes twinkling, muddy paws working warm blood into the comforter.

Seamus had screamed that time.

“Aww, he likes you.” Eddie had purred the next day, as Seamus glared coldly at the two black trash bags outside his home, the ones containing his entire bedspread. The blood hadn’t reached the mattress but he’d flipped that anyway, and he was still planning on sleeping on the couch for a week.

“I’m breaking up with you.” Seamus had replied dryly. The look on Eddie’s face, one of complete and total distain, had hit Seamus square in the chest. Like it hadn't been painfully obvious from the beginning that nothing had scared him more than that thought. Shit.

“Seamus!” Eddie whined.

“Hey, okay, I'm never going to actually break up with you.” Seamus sighed, ”But what the fuck.”

“I don’t know!” the boy had protested while throwing his hands up, defeated. “I’m not fully in here,” He tapped his head, “When we’re out in the wild, okay? And I guess... I wanted to thank you, to show appreciation for how you’re handling all of this. _That_ want translated to _this_ action. Or; it made sense at the time, okay?”

“If you think you’re gonna flatter me by doing a more disgusting version of a cat leaving a dead mouse on my porch... you’re only a little right.” Seamus had sighed, plopping down on their couch and putting his head in his hands. It was _almost_ flattering. Entirely more disgusting and nightmarish, but the fact that even when Eddie was operating only on animal instinct he still thought of Seamus and wanted to show him he cared…nope, still too gross. Close to good though.

“I’m sorry Seamus.” Eddie had sighed, sitting down next to him and yanking him into a hug. As the scratchiness of Eddie’s beard on Seamus’ face registered, he found himself reminded of the night before, and the feeling of soft muzzle fur on his palm.

“Ugh, you’re fine.” He said, twisting out of the hug. Everything made him feel weird right now. “Just. Never pull that again, okay? And you’re going to have to go out there again, you know. There’s some mutilated deer that you killed abandoned behind a Speedway.”

“What?” Eddie’d laughed. “Me, kill a whole deer? No. I probably pulled that off of some roadkill somewhere, hah.”

“We’re literally over.”

“It was a way of saying that I love you!”

 

So open window was no longer part of the equation. And letting Eddie outside of the room just meant, as one very fateful midwinter moon taught them, that the fox was extremely happy to chase the cat around the house, as well as terrorize, if not chew free the dogs from their crates. Seamus hadn’t even had the chance to fall back asleep before he was jolted back up by the sound of what turned out to be an entire end-table, stacked with games, papers, a lamp, all being careened over as the fox chased after its target.

And all that really left them with was the fact that they just had to ride it out until they found a better solution. Seamus hated it, the endless scrabbling at the door, the scratches that were starting to show up in the hardwood, the occasional weight of the fox vaulting itself up on the bed before Seamus kicked it back down again. But it kept disaster to a minimum and Seamus no longer had to deal with any more grisly “I love you’s” from his werefox boyfriend, so it was the closest to decent that they could come.

 

“This is how much I love you, you know.” Seamus had said once at the tail-end of a _long_ night. He glared at the bags under his eyes in the bathroom mirror. “You mean so much to me that I live through this, and don’t even entertain the thought of getting a crate so I can lock you up when you get bad.”

“As if any cage could hold me!” Eddie had sneered, going to pat Seamus on the back. The glare Seamus served him through the mirror stopped him cold.

“Okay, I really am sorry.” Eddie had sighed, wrapping his arms around the boy’s torso instead. Seamus let him, letting out a long breath and letting Eddie squeeze him before they parted.

“I think.” Eddie had started as he turned away from the bathroom. But then he’d stopped, looked at his feet and shrugged. “Actually, nah.”

“What?” Seamus asked, turning around. Eddie had a hand raised to scratch at the back of his neck and he pointedly wasn’t looking in Seamus’ direction. “Tell me.”

“It’s. It’s stupid.”

“You’ve never let that stop you before.”

Eddie laughed at this, shooting Seamus look as he did so. “Okay, asshole. Thanks for that.”

“Thanks for trying to dig up the floorboards and granting me a total two hours of sleep last night.”

“Heh, no problem.”

“Tell me what you were going to say!”

Eddie dropped his arm so that he could cross it with his other one, almost pouting as he avoided Seamus’ eyes.

“Okay, I don’t know if this is real or not, alright? So it might not even work.”

“Helps to tell me what it is first, I'd think.” Seamus replied.

“It’s just… something my abuela told me when I was a kid, but she wasn’t even on the shape shifting side of my family. This was just something she read once.”

“Old wives tale?” Seamus asked.

“Something like that. It was just like this old legend that said there was another way to change back, other than by the sunrise.”

That had Seamus’ interest, front and center. “Go on.”

“I think it must have gotten really romantic-upped after being told for a few centuries and all, but uh,” He was blushing a little, and a small smile wrinkled the bridge of Seamus’ nose. After all, Eddie'd not parse his words carefully unless he was really embarrassed by what he’s going to say. And personally, Seamus couldn’t wait to be told he had to ring a silver bell on the seventh chime of midnight wearing only brown shoes, or something equally as nonsensical.

“Just say it.” Seamus sighed.

“Okay.” Eddie said through gritted teeth. “It’s been said that if someone really, truly loves and trusts the werewolf, or fox, or lion or coyote, you get the idea... But if someone really loves them and calls them by their name, then, I quote, ‘the beast might yield for them and the person comes back.’”

Seamus had sat for a moment, taking it all in.

“God,” He’d said. “You said it was bad, not the cheesiest goddamn thing I’d ever hear in my life.”

“I know!” Eddie had laughed into his hand, cheeks red. “But it’s all I can think about when I see you like this! I hate when you get like this.”

“Yeah, I hate it too. I hate that you have to see me hating it.” Seamus replied. Then he’d taken a small breath, squinting as he said “So, does it work?”

Eddie, coming down from his embarrassment fit, only shrugged.

“Dunno. Like I said, I only heard about it in stories. My mom tried the thing where you throw a piece of their clothing at the beast instead, and he just chewed holes in his pants.” 

“Truly, these are encouraging words.”

“Thanks. But feel free to give it a try though, if you want.” 

“At this point,” Seamus had said, turning back to his ghoulish reflection in the mirror, “I’ll try anything.”

And he had.

Next shift, he’d sat up straight in bed and talked to the fox, who only twitched its ears in return.

“Eddie. Edwin. Edwin Cardona. Jr. Stop digging at the windowsill. Please?”

But it’d all resulted in a great big nothing. To which Seamus said he couldn’t be surprised. He’d expected it to work just about as well as any myth from the depths of mystic history would. Maybe next he could drink out of its footprint on a full moon, become a werefox instead. 

 

He sits up now, watches as the fox paces back and forth between the door and the window, tossing glances his way every so often. Seamus doesn’t budge though, just waits for a heavy enough wave of delirium to take him back under. Or, more likely, for that animal to start yipping and whining for his help again.

The worst is when it tries to get up on the bed. It squirms up on to the edge of the mattress and Seamus knocks it off each time, huffing as it thwumps into the ground.

There’s something about the proximity that Seamus can’t deal with. Whether it’s an after-effect of the deer leg incident or something about the reality of it all becoming too much when it’s beside him, Seamus just can’t take it. It's like the toenails, this isn't how things should be.

Through this though, the fox though only proved that it inherited more than a little of Eddie’s inability to comply easily.

Three-thirty soon ticks over to four-thirty, and Seamus’ eyelids feel weighted. He’s flopped back on the bedspread and he can feel the warm dredges of sleep reaching for him. Down on the floor the fox is sitting idly, tail no-doubt twitching, ears tuned towards the outer hall in case of any sounds that might perk his interest. In no time at all he’ll be up and pacing again, but Seamus doesn’t let this thought dissuade him as he falls closer and closer to full rest.

By the time his mind is fully fogged over, he barely feels the other side of the bed bounce and ripple at all.

But he does feel it.

Begrudgingly Seamus opens his eyes and that weird shiver runs through him again. The fox that is his boyfriend is laid out on Eddie’s side of the bed, legs curled up to its belly, tail tucked neatly to its side. It’s facing him, and in the pale morning glimmer Seamus can just make out the details on its face, ruddy umber fur and white muzzle and black tipped nose. Black ears that are a little smaller than those of a regular fox. Brown eyes.

“I see you thought I needed company in the land of perpetually-awake hell.” He says.

 A light pink tongue appears as the creature licks over its muzzle, then opens its mouth in a wide yawn, revealing rows of strange, half carnivorous, half humanoid teeth.

“Ah, you fucker.” Seamus hisses at the wave of its breath.

Something in Seamus tells him to push it away like he has before. And it could be the exhaustion, or maybe the way it’s gently staring him down, but Seamus keeps still. After he pulls a disgusted face and waves away the animal breath he inhales, and finds the strangest smell of fur and Eddie’s cologne at the back of his throat.

He coughs at it, though he swears it’s because the smell is cloying and not that it’s given him goosebumps. As he does so the fox inches closer, cocking its head and blinking up in his direction. _Seamus_?

In his mind’s eye Seamus sees the countless times Eddie’s made the same move, the turn of the body, the shake of the head. Eddie, Eddie, Eddie.

He turns away, not kicking the fox off the bed but no longer looking at it. He feels the thing wobble to its legs and he knows he’s being watched but he’s keeping it down.

_Seamus, calm down. Eddie’s worried about you._

Eddie. Playful and inquisitive. The fox. Loud and excitable. The same, they’re the same.

Eddie doesn’t just turn into this thing, this thing _is_ Eddie. 

_Shit._

Tentatively, Seamus reaches out a hand.

Years of automatic motion in front of animals has Seamus pausing with his palm a couple inches from Eddie’s nose, but he knows its silly. Even Eddie doesn’t entertain this, flattening his ears like he’s trying to say ‘ _Really, dude_?’ And Seamus just kind of laughs, pushing on.

Eddie perks his ears as Seamus moves in closer, but makes no attempt to dissuade him.

Carefully his fingers brush the fur between his ears, which is soft and velvety, and then carries on down his spine, where it gets thicker and more coarse.

Eddie watches him, and doesn’t move.

“Fuckin. What the hell.” Seamus just murmers, and the tip of the fox’s tail wriggles back and forth. Eddie laughing at him, nothing new.

Seamus repeats the motion a couple more times, getting used to the feeling of the coarse texture under his hand. Moreover though, he’s repeating to himself mentally, ‘ _This is Eddie. This is him too.'_

He’s not sure if it’s conviction or just pure exhaustion is what stills his hand as it rests on Eddie’s flank, but he’s brought back to attention fast as Eddie wriggles a couple inches closer. He points his narrow snout in between Seamus’ eyes and lets out a slow sigh.

Again Seamus studies his gaze. Before, he’d been stunned because there was so much animal on top of eyes that looked like his boyfriends’. Now it’s like he’s looking entirely past that, find Eddie, finds he was there the whole time.

The eyes, the body belongs to his best friend and the greatest person he knows.

Eddie wriggles even closer because Seamus is grinning now, and in his excitement he licks the tip of Seamus’ nose.

“Nope.” Seamus says immediately, putting up a hand and rolling away from the contact. He hears the record snap sound in his head. “That’s enough.”

He does this and Eddie’s ears perk up, his tail thumps the bed. His eyes are bright, the posture is unmistakable even in an entirely different body. He’s keening at him.

“God, you ass.” Seamus says, and Eddie inches closer still, mouth open in a silent giggle as Seamus squints and wipes at his nose. “We had a good thing going on there too.”

Eddie closes his mouth and tips his head to the side, just a bit. Another gesture that is the same in both bodies, despite all things.

_Oops, sorry._

“Ugh, you’re fine. Just get back to your side.” Seamus says, righting his position on the bed again. When he goes to playfully push Eddie’s head away from his pillow though, the were-fox just stills and keeps his head in Seamus’ hand, stilling him. 

It’s heavy, coarse but not uncomfortable. Not unlike how Meowgi’s head feels when he rubs her throat. Seamus’ fingers twitch so that he’s gently, gently scratching the underside of his jaw.

Eddie’s eyes bore into his own and his tail gives a single thump on the duvet. He leans into the touch and lets out the slowest breath, closing his eyes.

Seamus shivers again but this time, he doesn’t feel cold.

“Hey, love you too Sly.”

He works his way back into comfort and pulls the blanket back up to his shoulders, ready to find sleep again, this time with his companion by his side. They’ll have a lot to talk about tomorrow, but that’s at least three hours away.

 

“Seamus?" 

Seamus isn’t at all ready for the voice that hits him not a minute later. His eyes fly open and he twists around, gawking at the sight beside him. Eddie’s there, laid bare in human skin, head just below the pillows so his legs dangle over the edge of the mattress. The boy looks about as stunned as Seamus feels, eyes wide, mouth agape.

“Eddie, what the fuck?” Seamus asks. Eddie pulls himself up into a sitting position, looking at his hands and feet like they’re entirely new.

“I was just about to ask you the same thing, holy shit.” Eddie breathes.

“What just happened?”

“I don’t. I don’t know.” Eddie says, still studying himself. “It was like I was in there, asleep or something, but then I could hear you. Not the fox part of me but the human me. A-and I heard you, and I wanted to be with you again. And now here I am. Holy shit that was the smoothest transition ever!” 

Seamus just looks at him, trying to process this and the feeling of goosebumps raising up on his arms.

“You understood me in there?”

“Yeah. You said that you loved me. And so I needed to say that I loved you too. In words, not legs.”

“Holy shit.” Seamus breathes. Eddie’s still checking himself out like he can’t believe it. Not that Seamus much can either. Then he says, squinting, “And the legend is even cheesier when you put it into action.”

This earns him a giggle, which is a comforting familiarity among all the Weird Love Magic. Outside the sky is tinted a warm and inviting pink, and Eddie flops on to the mattress, amazed.

“Ha-ha.” He says in a playful tone after a moment’s pause. “This means you really love me even though I turn into a do-og.” 

“Ha ha you turn into a fucking wild animal because the sun hits the moon weird.” Seamus fires back. 

“Touché.”

“Eddie, I don’t want to be insensitive and ruin the moment here,”

“Really? That’s not like you.”

“Shut up. I was going to say, can we talk about this in the morning? I’m really tired.”

“Sure thing, boo.” Eddie says, rolling over and pulling Seamus closer to him. Seamus obliges to the hug and sighs contentedly. As he does so, and as his ears start to pick up the steady pattern of Eddie’s heart beating in his chest, he swears he can pick up on the faintest, lightest hint of the fox’s scent, hidden just under Eddie’s skin.

 And as he falls asleep there, fingers gently kneading Eddie’s hair, he finds he doesn't mind it at all.


End file.
